When Christ walks in hell

                    When Christ walks in hell,
                    will I follow Him even there,
                    will I walk inside His footsteps,
                    out of fresh and sunlit air?

                    He suffered, yes, and suffers
                    though no longer on the tree,
                    whose standing from the grave
                    gave God glory freeing me.

                    Do I go down as He descends,
                    delve deep my brother’s grave
                    to hold him close and cradle him,
                    help Him one soul to save?

                    The nether regions of the dead,
                    not painted myths and lore,
                    are open if I only dare
                    to go through Him the Door.

— Romanós

Love is greater

This is a strange truth that we are all familiar with, usually even knowing the bible reference, 1 Corinthians 13 (verse 13), by heart, and without being a bible scholar. Yet, on the whole, we often act as though we'd never heard it.

Confessional Christianity (that's most of us) put doctrine first so we can protect ourselves from those who do not accept the truth, that is, the doctrine set that we believe in.

Then, maybe next in priority we place faith, that is, trusting in God and not just believing in Him—for even devils do that!

Hope we put in there somewhere but not always, since many of us have long ago given up on the unsaved who are just so darn ornery that they probably deserve to be damned, and so we don't bother to witness to them.

But love, if we even know what it is, since the culture has hijacked it and uses the word to describe anything from pure, unadulterated lust to any fleeting desire of the moment, yes, love, well, we know how to show it to those who love us (if they love us back) and we know how to love ourselves, but the kind of love that apostle Paul is writing about here, it's just a fairy tale to be read aloud in quaint wedding services or, if we're liturgical, it finds its place somewhere during the year in a regular Sunday service.

Christ help us! Even when we know what love is, how hard it is for us to really show it while forgetting ourselves!

As for the Orthodox, we have a saint, recently reposed and probably not to be canonized, whose name was Gavrilia Papayanni. She was an unsung moneyless missionary of love to the poor of many countries, particularly India, where she performed the healing arts (she was a physiotherapist) including working with the lepers as did her famous contemporary Mother Teresa of Calcutta. We call her 'Mother Gavrilia" and the Indians call her 'Sister Lila'.

She used to say, 'Love alone is enough to make a miracle happen. Neither Prayer nor the Komboskini (Prayer rope) have such power.'

I think for us who try to live the ancient faith, we understand exactly what she means. Yes, we can and should pray for the healing and salvation of our neighbors, but we can really do so only if we love them first. Love not only covers all offenses, but heals all wounds. Yes, as apostle Paul says, 'and the greatest of these is love.'

Dignity of the thrones

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” “We can,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”
Mark 10:35-40

Christians, like James and John, have a request to make of their Lord. They want to be near Him, but they think that this means to be enthroned at His right and left. After all, they know the scripture which says they have been given an unshakable kingdom, and that Christ has gone to prepare a place for them in His Father’s house, a mansion in fact. That is the glory and reward of following Jesus, they believe: to reign with Him. They never think past the dignity of the thrones, their ideas of what that really means. It becomes a picture for them of what their devotion to Christ deserves, their heavenly reward.

James and John had faith in Jesus. They knew who He was, that He was the Anointed One, the true King of Israel, and the Holy One. They could have no other idea of His role but what they had been brought up believing about Mashiach. They were excited beyond measure, they were willing to risk everything, because they knew for sure that He was the One sent by God to redeem Israel, and they had been chosen by Him as companions. They were special. Being confident of this, of their closeness to the Redeemer, they felt emboldened to ask Him for a favor.

Surely, the Christ can grant whatever He wants to anyone He likes. After all, He has said, ‘As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to anyone He chooses’ (John 5:21). If He can give life, surely there is nothing He cannot give. Why not ask Him this, to sit enthroned at His right and at His left? Why wouldn’t He do that for us? He loves us more than anyone, and He can do anything. Forgetting that the Son is not the Father, we ask Him for what it is not His to give. Is it our faith that prompts us, or something else?

But it is not Christ’s to say ‘yes and no’: for with Christ it is always ‘yes’ (2 Corinthians 1:19), and so He prefaces His ‘yes’ with a simple warning, ‘You don’t know what you are asking,’ and then asks them a simple question, ‘Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?’ This is the same question He asks us when we go forward to meet Him in baptism. We think it over quickly and rush to respond, ‘Yes, Lord, whatever is necessary, I will do it’ and we mumble a proviso, ‘if I can.’ Like James and John, we know who it is we’ve believed in, and what He can grant us. We are already counting on it.

Real life breaks in on our dreaming of heaven, and the crowns and thrones we imagine in our spiritual infancy grow stranger as they begin to materialize before our lives. Do we really want to be at His right and left? What if that means we will be seen and treated as criminals? What if that means we will be accused, judged and condemned? And for things we may not even have done? What if that means desertion by a husband or wife? Or betrayal by our closest friend? What if it means being cast out of the family, being shunned, despised, left for dead?

‘You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.’ Now, we realize that His ‘yes’ means more than we ever thought possible. Now we grasp what He meant when He asked us if we could down the cup and endure the baptism that He did, and we wonder how we could not have noticed where all this was leading us. Discipleship to Jesus, following the greater commandment to love God and neighbor, leads to this?

It is true, my brothers. Don’t be surprised if it happens to you. Don’t be astonished if Christ really answers your prayer and grants your request. It may not look like what you were expecting. It doesn’t have to conform to your reading of scripture, or to what your pastor told you yesterday. The promises of God are not man’s promises, but something better: God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, yet we are held, we are lifted up in His thoughts to a place on high with Him, to share in the high priesthood of His Son, whose kingdom is the Cross, by which joy has come to the whole universe.

Just a small stone

Here is an age-old pattern (and no pun intended) that as people get older, they have a tendency to remember the past in rosy hues and talk about the ‘good old days’ in contrast to the present, which seems cold, corrupt and indifferent to them. I know this well because I see it happening in myself, as I am now in my sixty-fourth year, but I don’t let it get past my vocal chords but nip it in the bud. No, the past is not an idyllic world, only a world to which we cannot just turn back the clock and return. It had its problems too, just as the world of the present. Scripture says, ‘Do not be hasty with your resentment, for resentment is found in the heart of fools. Do not ask why earlier days were better than these, for that is not a question prompted by wisdom’ (Ecclesiastes 7:9-10 JB).

Yet, though the first step in the direction of wisdom is to understand this, that the past was not categorically better than the present, the second step in that direction is to be able to see the present in the light of wisdom, to appraise it and, yes, even compare it to the known (not the imaginary) past, and if the present is found wanting, to work to better it. Human society as a whole is not monolithic. At any given time there will coexist healthy societies and sick ones, but one must be free to analyze them with reason, unrestrained and unaffected by political, religious or social conventions. What I mean is, if a sick man has been told repeatedly that he is not sick but the very picture of health, he will hesitate to complain of the pain in his lower right abdomen, and not seek medical attention, until it’s too late.

As I look out of my window and step out of my door into an America that has drifted so far from its moral foundations that it is almost a nation of free people no longer, but a slave state, with slave behaviors, immoralities and expectations, I realize that my country is in very deep trouble. We seem to have, many of us, lost all trust in human systems to the point where we are living just for the day, and so in effect inhabiting a world that functions as an anarchy regulated by an institution that is already dead but is hiding the fact from us. We see this in state, in church, in business, almost everywhere we look. Scripture prophesies, sees straight through us, ‘everyone tries to catch his brother in their father’s house to say, You have a cloak, so you be the leader, and rule this heap of ruins!’ (Isaiah 3:6 JB).

There has been no golden age, not since mankind exiled himself from the state of Paradise. The past was not categorically better than the present, but human society has risen and fallen in the seven thousand years we have inhabited this world. The world of today has many improvements over what we had before, but it has also many corruptions of what came before. It does us no good to cling to the past and dream, but even less good to cling to the present and not look back. At the moment the only country I know is declining rapidly because it is clinging to the present, abandoning the past, and destroying its future. ‘O my people, oppressed by a lad, ruled by women. O my people, your rulers mislead you and destroy the road you walk on’ (Isaiah 3:12 JB). I am not inciting rebellion, only revolution.

And not political, not religious, but social. What was wrong with us in the recent past was indicated by the rise of Godless Communism, which acted as a threat and containment to prevent us from devolving further. What is wrong with us now is indicated by the rise of militant Godly Islam. The one was Godless, the other claims to be Godly, but it is God Himself who chastises us into remembrance and will finally provoke latent champions to action by these forces He raises against us. There was much in Communism that was right, and there is much in Islam that is right. But the first failed as a system, and so will the second fail, because they were not sent to succeed, and because humanity never has been, never is, and never will be saved by systems, political, religious or social. Ideologies are the last and subtlest of idols.

‘I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no gods except me’ (Exodus 20:1-3 JB). Yes, this is the first of the ‘Ten Commandments’ and the most easily glossed over. Since God, our God, the living God—if He exists—does not interact with us in a manner we would like, we feel perfectly justified in imprisoning Him deep inside the human conscience—not in ours, of course, but in others’. The so-called separation of Church and State has given us permission, even a mandate, to allow every atrocity, from ‘the slaughter of the innocents’ renamed ‘a woman’s right to choose,’ down to the least noticed legalizing of institutions we would recoil from if given their true names, high-interest debt seduction formerly called ‘debtors’ prison.’

What more can I say? A better question is, what more can I do? For we have become a people of unintelligible speech, and have smiths who twist words to reshape our thinking, to shackle our wills. But the man of action, whoever he (or she) be, from least to greatest (especially since the ‘greatest’ refuse to show themselves), now can fell a giant with just a small stone by careful aim. To be faithful wherever we are, to encourage the good, to correct the teachable, to be patient with the ignorant, to be strong for the weak, to stand upright when others lie, to openly confess so imprisoned hearts may be loosed. These are the acts, not mere words, of the disciple of Christ, and also of His true friends wherever they may be, who work for the good they know, for ‘happy are the merciful, for mercy will be shown them.’

Jesus, Taker of Souls

Jesus, you are the taker of souls,
you are the secret thief of souls.
Under cover of night you steal your daughter
from pirates who curse and strike the air.

Jesus, you are the holy piper
and every soul who hears you
throws away his living and runs after you
leaving his winding-sheet in the road.

Jesus, you are the all-loved man.
Masked in darkness, you draw out the soul
of a dying man from its lifelong home.
Though he is terrified he surrenders.

Jesus, you are the taker of souls
for every soul that hears your name
immediately tries to give away his life
so he can be free to join your Company.

Jesus, you are the teacher who sings to souls.
A shock went through the body human
And all men in their souls looked wildly
for the light that suddenly shined on them.

Jesus, you are the all-loved man
for every one who thinks he runs from you
leaps into your arms and he who chases you
tries to hold a bundle but drops it in the path.

Alana Roberts

the latest from her blog

Platform

Sorrowless

Abba Dorotheos of Gaza writes,

People usually get annoyed either because they are in a bad mood, or they are nurturing unpleasant thoughts about another. However, the main reason for our annoyance is that we don’t reproach ourselves: this incurs spiritual disturbance and loss of inner peace. The true and genuine path toward a calm disposition is continual self-reproach. Even if a person had accomplished many good deeds yet doesn’t hold fast to the path of self-reproach, he will never cease being annoyed and insulting others, thereby losing the fruits of his good labor. In contrast, what joy and tranquility that person acquires who reproaches himself! Wherever he goes and whatever unpleasantness happens, or whatever insults he hears; he has convinced himself beforehand that he deserves all types of sorrows. That’s why when something unpleasant does happen, he doesn’t get annoyed. What more sorrowless condition can there be?

This kind of saying, ‘we should always reproach ourselves,’ always seemed nonsensical to me, somehow masochistic, and I didn't understand it or want to believe it was true, but I kept running across it, not so much in the scriptures, but in the Church fathers. I just figured it must be some kind of personal excess of theirs, and it just wasn't a word meant for me. It sounded to me like an instruction to always be putting oneself down, always blaming yourself for everything. That just didn't seem right.

But I was stupid and shallow in my understanding. Still, I have much compassion for people who thought like I did, because they really do misunderstand what is meant by self-reproach, and no one can naturally be ready to receive this word with understanding and reap the sorrowless condition that results from it, no one can be glad as long as they think of it as sorrow.

Self-reproach is the constant remembrance that all is lost, that all we hoped and worked for is vain and lost, that nothing we wanted to accomplish saw success, that everything we sought and slaved for came to nothing. Self-reproach is the willing acceptance and realization that of ourselves we are total failures, that we have missed the mark, that we gambled and lost, that we deserve nothing good, that our lives were empty and joyless, and that, like Job, we inwardly ‘shout for joy to see the tomb.’

“How is this possible? This is sheer madness!
It's much worse than I thought!”
Such is the response of the natural man,
who trusts in his own strength, his wisdom,
his virtue or his valor.

He forgets that his birth was nothing that he wrought,
that his health and life were nothing that he earned,
that the excellence of which he is so proud is nothing that he bought,
that the grave awaits him, as it awaits all,
and from it no one has returned.

Yes, it is much worse than almost anyone has thought. I know that now, and I know that only when you know for sure that nothing you can do, could do, or ever could have done would have achieved what only the Son of God has achieved for you, then you are able to truly reproach yourself, only then know for sure how to reproach yourself, only then finally know why to reproach yourself, and only then arrive where you can say for certain, as did Abba Dorotheos,

“What more sorrowless condition can there be?”

Honestly

Honestly, I used to have a saying, ‘Under the Roman Empire, the Christians were persecuted for their faith; now, since the Empire is no more, we have the Church to do the job.’

That’s how it sometimes feels. But there are other times when we have found ourselves in a perfect moment in the Church’s history, when pastors and people were full of love, respect, evangelical zeal, self-sacrifice, love for the lost, generosity for the needy. Those moments we wished would last forever, but they didn’t last long. Whose fault was that? Did the Church change, or did we? It is with the eyes of the Spirit that we look upon the Church with faith and declare to our souls, ‘This is the Body of Christ,’ and at other times, after ‘placing us on a peak impregnable’ the Spirit ‘turns away His eyes, and we are terrified’ (Psalm 30).

But without a doubt, the follower of Jesus knows who is speaking when he hears the preacher’s words, whether it is the Good Shepherd he is hearing, or just the hired man. And without a doubt, the disciple of Christ knows what is happening when he sees the Church’s works, whether it is the making disciples of all nations, or just lavishing itself in applause. It is then that the believer is tested: In Whom has he believed? In whom has he trusted? For whom does he live, in whom does he move and have his being? And finally, is it for what, or for whom, that he lays down his life?

We see around us the field white for harvest, yet stand our ground pulling up tares. We do the work reserved for the angels at time’s end, and let lie acres of dry bones waiting to be clothed in flesh, and live. There is only one Bridegroom, and only one Bride, yet we wander through the harems of our minds seeking under which veil she hides, and fail to see she is happily unveiled and seated beside her Lord. There is nothing to do now but plant the seed, because as soon planted, it springs up into the reaper’s hand, by the Lord of the harvest who alone gives increase. We have nothing else to do.
‘Come, labor on, claim the high calling angels cannot share.’

The people among whom Christ appeared continue, as Pascal writes, to deny Him, and for our sakes, otherwise they would be suspect witnesses, owning both the Kingdom and the King, that we might be slaves only, and not sons as they. And so they persist, and wisdom has still not abandoned them, for they guard and treasure her words. Their rabbi Tarfon says, ‘The day is short, the work is abundant, the workers are sluggish, the reward is great, and the Master of the house presses.’ He would also say, ‘It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task, but neither are you free to absolve yourself from it.’

For me there is no male or female, Greek or barbarian, freeman or slave, catholic or protestant, priest or layman, sophisticate or simple, rich or poor, black or white, straight or gay, friend or enemy, in short, no pairing of opposites to adulate one and outcaste the other, that is, if I am a follower of Jesus, who defended even those whom He knew to be unworthy, by human standards, of mercy and love. Every foundation of judgment has been shattered and scattered to make way for the only foundation that can be and has ever been laid: Jesus Christ, in whom there is no variation, no shadow of change, whose love is infinite, whose mercy boundless, who raises to life all the dead, yes, who raises even me.

How happy the merciful!

‘How happy the merciful, for they shall have mercy shown them!’ If ever there were a truth that Jesus understated, it must be this! ‘How happy the merciful!’ Yes, the traditional translation is ‘how blessèd,’ and of course, that actually means more than just happy, except who’s to know, since practically all of us no longer know what ‘happy’ or ‘blessèd’ really means? Still, it is a remarkable, yes, even an awesome statement, another one of those words of Jesus that are so profoundly powerful and would be immensely liberating if we would only hear them. Instead, we think we hear, and because we’ve heard them so often, they may as well fall on deaf ears. Indeed, better to be deaf, better yet, never to have heard them at all until we do hear them, and accept them, for real, for the first time.

How wretched are all our attempts to obtain salvation by our own designs, ignoring the divine economy, and feeling smug when we think we’ve achieved it, either by confessing the right faith, or by doing good works, depending on whether we are ‘reformed’ or ‘catholic.’ Neither of these theoretically opposing methods—salvation by faith alone versus by works (or by faith and works, as the doctrine really states)—can bring us any closer to true salvation than listening closely to the words of Jesus and acting on them. It escapes me how we can be so blinded for so long, lulled to religious slumber, or deafened perhaps by the din of our chanting, or our gospel bands. ‘I heard the voice of Jesus say…’ begins my favorite English hymn, and yet how many years, how many tears, before I listened.

‘How happy the merciful.’ Yes, it’s as simple as that. We are not even close to understanding anything yet about what salvation means, or how to obtain it, outside of this primary lesson. For without mercy, salvation is strictly and ontologically impossible, for us, or for anyone. One might as well abandon every other discipline, especially any we have particular zeal for, if we neglect, by will or even by accident, being merciful.

And merciful to whom? Well, perhaps we can start by being merciful to the person sitting next to us, maybe to the one who accidentally occupied our theater seat when we left momentarily to use the restroom. Maybe we could be merciful to the timid old lady whose slow driving is causing us not to speed our way to work, because we’ve diddle-dawdled and are now late.

Mercy can take many forms, but all of them are presented to us, daily, as clear opportunities, clear enough for us to make a conscious decision, to show mercy, or to withhold it. Christ could not tell us, ‘Blessèd are the merciful, for mercy will be shown them,’ implying the opposite, that mercy will not be shown to those others, the ones who were unmerciful, unless He sent us occasions openly. The living God, unlike the mythic gods of pre-Christian peoples, does not play tricks on us, does not tantalize us. He does not create us for destruction, but for salvation. He knows that we sin, that we are sick, and He has given into our very hands the medicine of the cure, at least the first dose—mercy—and made all of us responsible not only for ourselves, but for each other.

‘How happy the merciful, for they shall have mercy shown them!’ What a great and loving God we have, who has given us into each other’s keeping, and sown in us the seeds of immortality which are watered first and most easily by mercy. To be merciful to others, yes, this is to follow Jesus Christ who tells us, ‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’ (Matthew 11:29-30).

I am a Christian

I am a Christian: I reject no one. Not the sinner, for Christ has not rejected me who am their chief. Not the blasphemer, for who but I have blessed God aloud while cursing inwardly? Not the heretic, for I too am on the way to knowing the One True God. Not the proud, for I have already betrayed myself as pretender to all. Not the rich, for who but I have wasted and squandered all the wealth I have been gifted? Not the hypocrite, for even as I speak I cringe at my own shameful life, entreating divine mercy. No, I am a Christian: I reject no one, for One has not rejected me.

Help me, Holy God, to be Aléxandros, ‘defender of mankind,’ and not Katígoros, like Satan, their ‘accuser.’ Help me, Holy Mighty, and accept my weakness as payment in return for Your Strength, who alone are strong, who alone are loving. Help me, Holy Immortal, to receive Your life eternal by dying to myself and becoming bread for others, as You undying feed all, broken yet undivided. Glory to You, O God who has joined us to Yourself, in énosis, ‘oneness,’ by means of kénosis, ‘emptiness.’ Empty me, O Lord, that You may fill me, for You alone are Holy God, Mighty and Immortal.

I am a Christian: I reject no one. Yet not by my power or my strength, O Lord, but by Your Spirit.

Finally able to see

To watch, to wait, to keep the heart pure, the eye single.

To be two-hearted is against nature, yet we change ourselves, yielding to forces outside us, through fear at first, and then to triumph over others, we duplicate our heart, we become duplicitous.

To be two-eyed is according to nature, yet we are commanded to have a single eye, so that our bodies may be full of light. ‘If your eye offends thee, pluck it out, and throw it away…’ Our choice is before us.

So we find ourselves, when we awake, to have been sleeping on a battlefield, we know not how long, and we resent this. ‘Why me?’ asks every soul, as it reads the God-etched commandments in the flesh.

So the Church father (we forget his name) says, ‘Man is commanded to become God,’ and we remember that he spoke this at a funeral oration of another ancient ‘great.’ But it is our own funeral that matters to us.

By nature thus, contrary to nature thus. We yearn to transcend the chaos of our lives, yet dig ourselves deeper in that chaos as we multiply our hearts and refuse to put out one eye, that which consumes all.

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us whom You have made, and bring us back to where we began, our hearts one in Your heart, and seeing You with a single eye, finally able to see.

Confident and certain

The Christian life is not to let oneself be crushed and overwhelmed by sin, in others or in oneself, but even while confessing one’s sinfulness, to profess the mercy of God, to be confident and certain about it. So confident and certain, in fact, that one is unhindered in following Jesus, in copying His thoughts, words and deeds in such a manner, that another window to His mercy has been opened for others. We may be just holes in a wall, but what Light we let into this world of darkness! We do not make that Light, we are not that Light, but by voiding ourselves, that Light shines. Not by works, lest anyone should boast (Ephesians 2:9).

Confident and certain of the undeserved mercy of God to our sinfulness, rather than being successful in winning worldly blessings—even in winning souls—this is the Christian life, this is what the call of Christ is all about. Again, it is not what we do, but what He does, about sin in the world and in us. Yes, we will do the same works that Jesus did, and even greater works because He has gone to the Father, yet it is not we who live, but Christ who is alive in us, and it is He who living in us does these works. Not by us, Yahweh, not by us, by You alone is glory deserved, by Your love and Your faithfulness (Psalm 115:1).

They said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
John 6:28-29

Merciful

If a man readily and joyfully accepts a loss for the sake of God, he is inwardly pure. And if he does not look down upon any man because of his defects, in very truth he is free. If a man is not pleased with someone who honors him, nor displeased with someone who dishonors him, he is dead to the world and to this life. The watchfulness of discernment is superior to every discipline of men accomplished in any way to any degree.

Do not hate the sinner. For we are all laden with guilt. If for the sake of God you are moved to oppose him, weep over him. Why do you hate him? Hate his sins and pray for him, that you may imitate Christ Who was not wroth with sinners, but interceded for them. Do you not see how He wept over Jerusalem? We are mocked by the devil in many instances, so why should we hate the man who is mocked by him who mocks us also?

Why, O man, do you hate the sinner? Could it be because he is not so righteous as you? But where is your righteousness when you have no love? Why do you not shed tears over him? But you persecute him. In ignorance some are moved with anger, presuming themselves to be discerners of the works of sinners.

Be a herald of God's goodness, for God rules over you, unworthy though you are; for although your debt to Him is so great, yet He is not seen exacting payment from you, and from the small works you do, He bestows great rewards upon you.

Do not call God just, for His justice is not manifest in the things concerning you. And if David calls Him just and upright (cf. Psalm 24:8, 144:17), His Son revealed to us that He is good and kind. ‘He is good,’ He says, ‘to the evil and to the impious’ (Luke 6:35).

How can you call God just when you come across the Scriptural passage on the wage given to the workers? ‘Friend, I do thee no wrong: I will give unto this last even as unto thee. Is thine eye evil because I am good?’ (Matthew 20:12-15).

How can a man call God just when he comes across the passage on the prodigal son who wasted his wealth with riotous living, how for the compunction alone which he showed, the father ran and fell upon his neck and gave him authority over all his wealth? (Luke 15:11 ff.).

None other but His very Son said these things concerning Him, lest we doubt it; and thus He bare witness concerning Him. Where, then, is God's justice, for whilst we are sinners Christ died for us! (cf. Romans 5:8). But if here He is merciful, we may believe that He will not change.

Far be it that we should ever think such an iniquity that God could become unmerciful! For the property of Divinity does not change as do mortals. God does not acquire something which He does not have, nor lose what He has, nor supplement what He does have, as do created beings.

But what God has from the beginning, He will have and has until the [unending] end, as the blest Cyril wrote in his commentary on Genesis. ‘Fear God, he says, out of love for Him, and not for the austere name that He has been given. Love Him as you ought to love Him; not for what He will give you in the future, but for what we have received, and for this world alone which He has created for us.’

Who is the man that can repay Him? Where is His repayment to be found in our works? Who persuaded Him in the beginning to bring us into being Who intercedes for us before Him, when we shall possess no [faculty of] memory, as though we never existed? Who will awake this our body for that life? Again, whence descends the notion of knowledge into dust?

O the wondrous mercy of God! O the astonishment at the bounty of our God and Creator! O might for which all is possible! O the immeasurable goodness that brings our nature again, sinners though we be, to His regeneration and rest! Who is sufficient to glorify Him?

He raises up the transgressor and blasphemer, he renews dust unendowed with reason, making it rational and comprehending and the scattered and insensible dust and the scattered senses He makes a rational nature worthy of thought.

The sinner is unable to comprehend the grace of His resurrection. Where is gehenna, that can afflict us? Where is perdition, that terrifies us in many ways and quenches the joy of His love? And what is gehenna as compared with the grace of His resurrection, when He will raise us from Hades and cause our corruptible nature to be clad in incorruption, and raise up in glory him that has fallen into Hades?

Come, men of discernment, and be filled with wonder! Whose mind is sufficiently wise and marvelous to wonder worthily at the bounty of our Creator? His recompense of sinners is, that instead of a just recompense, He rewards them with resurrection, and instead of those bodies with which they trampled upon His law, He enrobes them with perfect glory and incorruption.

That grace whereby we are resurrected after we have sinned is greater than the grace which brought us into being when we were not. Glory be to Thine immeasurable grace, O Lord!

Behold, Lord, the waves of Thy grace close my mouth with silence, and there is not a thought left in me before the face of Thy thanksgiving. What mouths can confess Thy praise, O good King, Thou Who lovest our life? Glory be to Thee for the two worlds which Thou hast created for our growth and delight, leading us by all things which Thou didst fashion to the knowledge of Thy glory, from now and unto the ages. Amen.

— Isaac the Syrian, Homily 60

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14

You keep me alive

God desires and seeks the salvation of all. And He is always saving all who wish to be saved from drowning in the sea of life and sin. 
But He does not always save in a boat or a convenient, well-equipped harbor.

He promised to save the Holy Apostle Paul and all his fellow-travelers, and He did save them. But the Apostle and his fellow-passengers were not saved in the ship, which was wrecked; they were saved with great difficulty, some by swimming and others on boards and various bits of the ship's wreckage.

— Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov

Though I live surrounded by trouble,
You keep my alive—to my enemies’ fury!
You stretch Your hand out and save me,
Your right hand will do everything for me.
Yahweh, Your love is everlasting,
do not abandon us whom you gave made.
Psalm 138:7-8 Jerusalem Bible

Psalms for the 28th Day
132 133 134 135 136 137 138

Now Your Word is a lamp

Psalms for the 26th Day
119: 105-176 — 97-176 (Hebrew)

נ (Nún)

Now Your Word is a lamp to my feet,
a light on my path.
I have sworn to observe, I shall maintain
Your righteous rulings.
Yahweh, though my suffering is acute,
revive me as Your Word has guaranteed.
Yahweh, accept the homage that I offer,
teach me Your rulings.
I would lay down my life at any moment,
I have never yet forgotten Your Law.
The wicked have tried to trap me,
but I have never yet veered from Your precepts.
Your decrees are my eternal heritage,
they are the joy of my heart.
I devote myself to obeying Your statutes—
compensation enough for ever!

The Hebrew discipline of daily psalm reading starts the reading for the 26th day at verse 97, at the letter Mém…

מ (Mém)

Meditating all day on Your Law
how I have come to love it!
By Your commandment, ever mine,
how much wiser You have made me than my enemies!
How much subtler than my teachers,
through my meditating on Your decrees!
How much more perceptive than the elders,
as a result of my respecting Your precepts!
I refrain my feet from every evil path,
the better to observe Your Word.
I do not turn aside from Your rulings,
since You Yourself teach me these.
Your promise, how sweet to my palate!
Sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Your precepts endow me with perception;
I hate all deceptive paths.

Meeting again the verses of the psalm for the 26th day is always, for me, like running into a faithful and comforting friend at the end of a long and arduous day of struggle. He holds me closely to him for a moment, then looks me in the eyes and says, ‘Don't worry! That day is over. The new one is here, when we can serve the God of heaven together and joyfully keep His commandments! You are Home!’

The psalm of this day is so precious! Listen to this, just one more stanza, starting with verse 129, at the letter Pé…

פ (Pé)

Your decrees are so wonderful
my soul cannot but respect them.
As Your Word unfolds, it gives light,
and the simple understand.
I open my mouth, panting
eagerly for Your commandments.
Turn to me, please, pity me,
as You should those who love Your name.
Direct my steps as You have promised,
let evil win no power over me.
Rescue me from human oppression;
I will observe Your precepts.
Treat Your servant kindly,
teach me Your statutes.
My eyes stream with tears,
because others disregard Your Law.

As anyone who prays the psalms will have noticed, much of their content forms the basis of Orthodox liturgical chant. The familiar doxology at the conclusion of the orthros (dawn) service includes a whole series of psalm verses after the original text of the ancient hymn Δόξα σοι τω δείξαντι το φως (Glory to Thee who hast shown us the Light), and among them is the thrice-chanted verse from Psalm 119, "Blessed are You, O Lord, teach me Your statutes" (Psalm 119:12), in Greek, Ευλογητός ει Κύριε, δίδαξον με τα δικαιώματα σου (Evloghitós ei Kýrie, dhídhaxon me ta dhikaiómata su), and in Hebrew (omitting the Hebrew script), Barúkh attá Adonáy, lammedéyni hhukéykha. This hymn is so deeply engraved in my consciousness that I often wake up in the morning singing it.

Glory to You who have shown us the Light!

By the way, the full text of the doxology in transliterated Greek with an English translation is hymn #38 in my booklet Singing the Work of the People, which can be downloaded by clicking HERE.

Ευαγγελισμός

Just as the year can be conceived as beginning on various days—January 1st (civil), September 1st (religious), March 21st (spring begins)—so can various days in the Church calendar be conceived as the beginning of the Gospel.

I like to think of September 1st, “Indiction,” commemorating the Christ’s inauguration of His earthly ministry by reading the prophecy of Isaiah in the synagogue service, as the “beginning” of the Gospel.

Holy evangelist Mark is much simpler and more direct, The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God—It is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way, a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ ” And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins…

But another “beginning” of the Gospel, the Good News, is today’s feast-day, commemorating the annunciation to Mary the virgin, of God’s will that she become the mother of His Son, the Messiah. This feast is called in Greek, Ευαγγελισμός, Evangelismós, ‘announcing the Good News.’ And for Mary, just as for us, it was God’s Word coming to her, personally. His Word could have been met with deaf ears or ears hearing but not receiving. She, just as we, could have said, can say, “No thanks!” to God. That would have gotten her, and us, “off the hook.” Instead, she said “No” to her fears and doubts, and “Yes” to what God had chosen her for from before the foundation of the world. And it’s always just the same for us.

God has foreknown us from before the foundation of the world, and ever since we were born into it by His will (and it’s the only act He has done to us without asking our permission, creating us), He has been announcing to us, personally, the Good News, at every moment asking us to say “Yes” to His decrees concerning us.

His Word is clearly written large and small, in the Bible, in the universe He created, and in the intangibles and indescribables of our personal being. As for Mary saying “Yes,” what He has in store for us will give us cause to say, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.”

Evangelismós. Announcing the Good News. Called since before the foundation of the world. Brethren, let us rejoice with the Theotokos, for “He that is mighty hath magnified me, and Holy is His Name,” will be the song of each one of us, if we only say “Yes”.

Προσδοκώ ανάστασιν νεκρών

Our integration into the Divine Nature is no accident. Neither is it our due. It is not something that will inevitably happen, but it is where our being will lead us if we do not resist it, if we do not resist God.

Yes, God made man for immortality. We are not speaking of some kind of purely spiritual existence, eternal but bodiless. No, man was made, body and soul, for immortality, for deathlessness.

The entire culture, even Christianity, is infected with this idea—that any trans-mortal existence must be purely spiritual, as if we are going to be changed into angels—and it instantly recoils.

The religious recoil subconsciously by fantasizing about it. The irreligious recoil knowingly by rejecting it. Still, it is a fact of human nature: our bodies are made for immortality, and hence, our souls.

But what can it mean, our integration into the Divine Nature? Aren’t we spirits already? Some do indeed teach and believe, ‘I am a spirit, I have a soul, I live in a body.’

Simplistic thinking comforts for a while, but not for long. Although by nature God made us immortal, body and soul, that does not make us spiritual. Only One is Spirit: that is God.

Though we lost our natural immortality through our transgressions, by resisting our human nature as created, God, in becoming a man, Jesus Christ, accomplished more for us than immortality.

He, being One of the Holy Triad and pure Spirit, integrated with the body and soul of a man that He created. God became man, that man might become God, except for our free will, must become God.

St Gregory Nazianzen says in his Funeral oration for St Basil, ‘Man has been commanded to become God.’ He is also the first Church father to use the term ‘théosis’ for that God-charged deification.

So man who, body and soul, was created for immortality in the first Adam but forfeited that life by separation from the Divine Nature, that is, by suicide, in the second Adam is recreated for divinity.

Christ, in defeating death by death, bringing life to those in the tombs, Himself rose from the dead, body and soul, as first-fruits of all who have ever died. Not as a Spirit only, but as a complete man.

Yes, the God-man, who, though standing before His Father who is in heaven interceding for sinners, walks with His disciples on earth, even shares food with them, proving the resurrection of the dead.

Though in this present life our souls are the life of our bodies, in the world to come, the Spirit is the life of both our souls and bodies, our human nature fully integrated with the Divine Nature.

Through Jesus Christ the human race has gained more than it lost. Human nature has been raised to the Divine Nature. Respect your body as much as your soul, and expect the resurrection of the dead.

With eyes wide open

This is nothing at all that I wrote, but rather thoughts that I think, intimations that I feel, and here they are in written form. The author is Fr Stephen, and I have borrowed them to post here, just a few passages that mean a lot to me. Click here to read his entire testimony, titled The Sacrament of the Heart.

In the hands of Christ, bread always becomes His body: all things become what they truly are. In Christ the Kingdom of God is revealed and made manifest. Thus where Christ goes, “the blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Matthew 11:5). The sacramental life is not a special instance in which Christ initiates an ecclesiastical ceremony. What the Church may experience as “ceremony” is nothing other than the revelation of the Kingdom of God. Any claim which is less than that is a denial of the ministry of Christ.
…

The mystery of existence, any existence, is only made clear when seen in the light of Christ. It is this mystery of existence that we properly call sacrament. Things are revealed to be what they truly are when they are brought into proper relation to Christ. It is because the truth of all things is sacramental that we can say this.
…

The quiet life of the heart generally perceives intuitively, dwells in the present, accepts the reality that God gives in the moment. It does not distance or dominate or label. It is not governed by fear or desire and has no need to defend or justify.
…

If the heart does not perceive the sacramentality of all bread, then it will likely be blind to the true mystery of the bread of the Eucharist. In the same manner, those who do not perceive the true mystery found in the saints and the Mother of God, will not be able to see the true life of the people around them. The saints are not of note because they are unusual: they are of note because they reveal our true humanity.
…

It took centuries for those who claimed the name “Christian” to forget the truth of every meal. They would blindly seek to restrict the sacraments and give the land of the Kingdom over to meaninglessness and amnesia. But the Kingdom of God has come in Christ and the whole world is a sacrament. Christians are called to take, bless, break and give with eyes wide-open. Then the wonder of God’s mystery will unfold before us: every morsel of bread revealed to be His Body; every tree His Cross; and every human being a saint. Then we can begin to love as we are loved and become what we already are.

Lord's Day of the Veneration of the Cross

What our Saviour saw from the Cross - Tissot

There is much more to this Lord’s Day than a mere commemoration of the physical relic of the Cross, glorious though it may be. We can never forget, amidst the trappings of religion that often encumber and conceal it, that the Cross was endured for us, and it is also meant for us, those of us who follow Jesus. What does the world look like to us? Are we standing with our feet on the ground, looking up and adoring the crucified Lord? Or is our flesh nailed down to the Cross for love of Him, with whom we look upon a world that, lost in its own sin and suffering, gazes upon us, uncomprehending?

In Paradise of old, the tree stripped me bare, for by the eating thereof, the enemy brought in death. But now, the most holy tree of the Cross that doth clothe all men with the garment of life hath been set up on earth, and all of the world is filled with most boundless joy. Seeing it exalted, ye people, now, let us the faithful all cry out with one accord to God in faith: Thy house is full of glory, O Lord.

— Elevation of the Holy Cross - Sessional Hymn of the Canon

Here follow some gleanings on the Cross from earlier posts on
Cost of Discipleship.

Discipleship means the Cross

The knowledge of the Cross
is concealed in the sufferings of the Cross.

— Gregory the Great

The Cross is the door to mysteries. Through this door the intellect makes entrance in to the knowledge of heavenly mysteries. The knowledge of the Cross is concealed in the sufferings of the Cross. And the more our participation in its sufferings, the greater the perception we gain through the Cross. For, as the Apostle says, "As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ."

— Isaac of Syria

God does not create a cross for man. No matter how heavy a cross a man may carry in life, it is still just wood, from which man himself was made, and it always grows from the soil of his heart.

— Ambrose of Optina

The way of God from the beginning of time and from the creation of the human race has been the way of the cross and death. How did you get your idea that everything is just the opposite? You must realize that you are outside the way of God, that you are far from Him, that you do not wish to walk in the steps of the Saints, but want to make some special way for yourself and travel by it without sufferings. The way of God is a daily cross. No one has climbed to heaven by living a life of pleasure.

— Ignatios Brianchaninov

Christians often assume that to ‘take up our cross’ means simply to carry a burden. When we run into a life trouble, we will say things like ‘oh, this is just my cross to bear.’ We basically shrug it off, totally missing the significance of the cross.

Ever consider that the cross is not meant to be a burden?

It is meant to cause death.
The cross is meant to kill us!
It is an instrument of death!
Oh that wonderful cross!

Christianity can be many things to many people, but unless it is first and foremost the cross, it can devolve into ritual, culture, or magic. Not that everyone will have the same cross to bear and to die on, not that what it looks like or feels like will be the same for all, not that those who follow Christ to Calvary will all understand what is happening to them the same way, but nonetheless the cross awaits us all, at least all of us who seek to follow Jesus.

Why, then, do you fear to take up the Cross, which is the road to the Kingdom? In the Cross is salvation; in the Cross is life; in the Cross is protection against our enemies; in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness; in the Cross is strength of mind; in the Cross is joy of spirit; in the Cross is excellence of virtue; in the Cross is perfection of holiness. There is no salvation of soul, nor hope of eternal life, save in the Cross. Take up the Cross, therefore, and follow Jesus. Christ has gone before you, bearing His Cross; He died for you on the Cross, that you also may bear your cross, and desire to die on the cross with Him. For if you die with Him, you will also live with Him. And if you share His sufferings, you will also share His glory. See how in the Cross all things consist, and in dying on it all things depend. There is no other way to life and to true inner peace, than the way of the Cross, and of daily self-denial. Go where you will, seek what you will; you will find no higher way above nor safer way below than the road of the Holy Cross.

— Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12

                       Cross, do not fail me

                       when it comes my hour

                       to bleed. As to a strong-masted vessel,

                       let me be bound to you to share your power.

                       Hug me close as the wind we together wrestle.

                       Lost, let them nail me

                       as my ransomed soul

                       a steed of spirit mounts and my hungers hang.

                       Let me inherit what the jailer stole

                       and hidden, as I thirst, what prophets sang.

— Romanós

Thinking of One

There’s a line in a chant—it’s hard to call it a song—called ‘Creation’ written by Scots songwriter composer Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band that I’ve found myself strangely drawn to over the course of more than forty years since I first heard it:

‘Our first father, Abraham, whose bosom

Was the unique soul of the humans…’

The reference to Abraham’s ‘bosom’ was one I was familiar with. ‘Abraham’s bosom’ is or was, I thought, a convenient way to refer to the place of the departed, without having to refer to either heaven or hell, since the state of the reposed is technically not one or the other.

Though we say and think people ‘die and go to heaven’ or ‘die and go to hell,’ if the Orthodox Christian view is correct, there is no heaven or hell for us humans until the resurrection of the dead and the last judgment. True, these places or states may exist, for someone, but not yet for us. When we die, our bodies repose or sleep, and our souls, that is, our lives, are held awake and safe by God, but still separated from our corpses and all materiality.

This state of the soul—and I must ask you to forgive my layman’s explanation—is variously referred to as ‘Paradise’ (remembering Christ’s promise to the crucified robber, ‘you shall be with me this day in Paradise’), or Abraham’s bosom (recalling His teaching about the afterlife in the story of Lazarus and the rich man).

Some people believe in the idea of ‘soul sleep’ where the dead are simply unconscious until the day of resurrection, but this view has been condemned by the Church as incompatible with Divine Scripture and Holy Tradition. The saints ‘in heaven’ could not hear our prayer requests if they were sleeping, that’s obvious!

But this line of the chant keeps nagging at me, ‘our first father, Abraham, whose bosom was the unique soul of the humans,’ well, it seems to be saying something that has always been true but which we have all somehow missed. ‘The unique soul of the humans.’ One day this occurred to me: What if there were only one single human soul just as we know there is only one single Spirit, that is God? What would that mean? What would it look like?

C. S. Lewis has hinted at this in his primer Mere Christianity:

‘In the case of real toy soldiers or statues, if one came to life, it would obviously make no difference to the rest. They are all separate. But human beings are not. They look separate because you see them walking about separately. But then, we are so made that we can see only the present moment. If we could see the past, then of course it would look different. For there was a time when every man was part of his mother, and (earlier still) part of his father as well: and when they were part of his grandparents. If you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would not look like a lot of separate things dotted about. It would look like one single growing thing—rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would appear connected with every other.’

— C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity,

Chapter 27, ‘The Obstinate Toy Soldiers’

I admit, this passage of Mere Christianity also intrigued me as a truth that has somehow eluded us. It was not difficult to see from what I took to be Lewis’ metaphor that humanity is, as he calls it, a ‘mass,’ but there the idea stopped. It must just be a poetical and somewhat graphic way to indicate the general and well-known truth that all humans are related to each other, we are social animals, not mere individuals. This, it seemed to me, was his point, and one well taken, because the foremost heresy of our age is nothing to do with the nature of God, but everything to do with the nature of the human being. It is now an axiom not to be challenged or doubted that the individual is all important and, unless there still is a God, the most worthy of all worship.

But the ‘human mass’ as Lewis calls it, what if this is the ‘unique soul of the humans’? What if there is only a single soul, a single unitary life (for that is what ‘soul’ means) that is human with the same utter singularity that pertains to the Spirit who we call ‘God’?

The entire human population, including the terminated unborn, from the first-created (shall we call them ‘Adam and Eve’?) until this very moment—an incredible number, uncountable—can they, can we, all be simply experiences of that unique Soul? (I want to capitalize ‘Soul’ at this point, because I believe when there is only one of something and always will be, it deserves this sign of respect.)

By this, I do not mean something akin to robotic extensions that have no being of their own. No, what I am hinting at is that the unique Soul of the humans, is a single Life that is shared by innumerable ‘persons’ that all have meaning, value, personal existence, and immortality, none of which are lost by being ‘One in essence and undivided.’ All this being, by the grace of God, His image impressed on the created medium, even, no, especially, His life as a society of ‘Persons’ in the Holy Triad.

If the human race is indeed made ‘in the likeness and image’ of God who, though One, speaks of Himself as ‘We’ (yes, I know it is said to be nothing more than the plural of majesty), what if He in fact as well as act created us as a single Soul to be expressed throughout the dimension of time as a multiplicity of persons?

Holy and divine scripture says, ‘God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them’ (Genesis 1:27 JB).

If humanity were a single, unaging, and immortal created person, invisible to us because we are too close to see ourselves as him, time being a dimensional obstacle to that experience, that might explain and even harmonize many ideas and beliefs we hold about both man and God.

The foremost of these in my mind is what is really indicated by the scriptural term ‘Body of Christ’ as applied to the Church, and of Jesus Christ as the unique ‘Head’ of that Body. It also interprets and shows what is meant by ‘the Bride of Christ.’ And it doesn’t stop there. It goes beyond the borders of doctrinal Christianity.

The Jewish faith out of which Christianity emerges also acquires deeper significance if there is in fact as well as act a ‘unique Soul of the humans.’ There is the Adam Kadmon of the Kabbalah. Now, he is more than just a symbol of the primordial Man: he is that Man himself.

The bodily resurrection of the dead, believed by all Abrahamic faiths, if there is a ‘unique Soul of the humans,’ acquires a rational basis: The Soul expresses himself in his innumerable bodies so to experience all human possibilities, and afterwards, sums up his life in the resurrection of every person he ever was. The judgment? Yes, that too. As his mortal wounds are healed in immortality, his scabs fall off of their own accord. And it doesn’t stop there. It goes beyond the borders even of Abrahamic faiths.

What about reincarnation? Yes, what about it? We don’t have to argue it or explain it away. There is only one ‘unique Soul of the humans.’ From some visionary angles it appears to be reincarnation, because the Soul reiterates himself forever. ‘For beyond time he dwells in these bodies, though these bodies have an end in their time; but he remains immeasurable, immortal’ (Bhagavad Gita 2:18). Yes, there are the Two—Brahman and Atman, Divine Spirit and Human Soul, Bridegroom and Bride.

Why else does it seem to the human being in love with God that there is no one else in the world for him but his Lover, and his Lover loves him and sacrifices Himself for him as though he were the only human being that ever was made?

‘Let us make man in Our image.’ Yes, as holy apostle Peter writes, ‘Even the angels long to look into these things’ (1 Peter 1:12).

Belief and unbelief

There’s a lot of Christians out there, dogma’d to their teeth, who live and even think atheologically, and a lot of professed Atheists who are awesome theologians without realizing it. You have to ask an Atheist exactly which god he doesn't believe in, just as you have to ask (if you dare) a Christian exactly which god he does. Belief and unbelief are both tunnels that you may choose to live in permanently, or simply journey through in order to ‘get out alive.’ And while we’re in the tunnel, everyone knows it’s very dark, and no one can see too clearly. But if you really do want to ‘get out alive,’ no matter what you believe or disbelieve, you will.

Does this make personal faith or doctrinal religion pointless? No, not really, but it puts both in perspective, and deglorifies both, for nothing that pertains to this transitory life, even the means we make use of to go beyond it, is worthy of praise.

Only One is worthy, and His sovereignty without qualification unthrones all our self-salvation mechanisms. Whether you believe in Jesus Christ or not, His life and salvific work has an effect on you. In fact, He does not wait for you to recognize Him before He will save you. This may sound like doctrinal monergism, but it is not. The synergy that intertwines the human and Divine natures is so pervasive, so total, that from some vantage points, it may look like predestination, or some other human construct we can name. Yet He does nothing without us.

So, an Atheist can be saved? Isn’t that what some claim the Roman pope has recently opined?—that is, if popes can be said to ‘opine’. Normally they dogmatize, and keep the tracks of their holy predecessors covered. If Atheists can be saved, then what’s the point of believing, being a Christian, and putting up with all those religious obligations? Well, that’s a very good question believers need to ask themselves, because their answer may lead them to a more deliberate, more honest, posture. If he meant nothing else, perhaps the pope meant to draw to our attention not the fate of Atheists, but of ourselves. What is it we want? What is it we are working for?

‘For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’
(Matthew 6:21)